Here are some good comments from the FDS subreddit about this topic.
20 answers0 replies
Comments (20)
Unknown member
Oct 29, 2023
This is worth repeating:
If a man you're dating tells you he has a close female friend, then YOU ARE A PLACEHOLDER.
He is her friend only because friendship is the only thing she has allowed from him.
Run.
Edited
25
Unknown member
Oct 29, 2023
Replying to
Yep. Exactly this. Also if he can't shut up about that woman on work/in the sports club/wherever...he wants to sleep with her but she won't let him. Experienced that myself. He is not talking about her because she is such a great co-worker, but because in his mind he is already f*cking her.
Or they are/were friends with benefits!!! Any man who is keeping former women he's had sexual encounters with in his life (besides if they have to coparent) is a red flag!
Most of them can't be friends, unless you grew up together I don't believe men and women can be friends. unless friend is code word for booty call,
Business partners yes, friends? No, men want to be friends because they can go dutch hanging out with you, they can get to know you for free without courting or going on paid dates.
All men I gave a chance to be my friend all tried to have sex, or get my nudes, or will talk dirty to me after months being friends, I haven't met a man who claims he wants to be friends with also some benefits on top.
I will not talk to men, I can work together with them on a project for University but I will never talk to them in my private life, It's either just business or goodbye.
I once chatted with a guy who wanted a date with me. After a couple days of chatting he mentions his female best friend. He casually tells me that they regularly frequent an all nude, mixed gender sauna together.... Yeah, no thanks. Blocked and deleted right then and there. There are no friendships between male and female.
21
Unknown member
Oct 30, 2023
Replying to
If you allow a man to talk, he'll tell on himself.
If you think that a guy that's already in a relationship is safer to just be friends with, think again. So many of these guys are trying to branch out looking for women for side attention. One even had the audacity to ask me to be a third in their relationship.
Also another reason not to be friends with men is them disappearing when they get a girlfriend.
17
Unknown member
Oct 30, 2023
Replying to
I agree. Also don't assume that because a man is old enough to be your father/grandfather, that it's safe to be his friend or it's safe to be alone with him. In fact older men are often the creepiest and perviest of them all.
I have male acquaintances I will hang out with or chat with on occasion because we share the same hobbies, etc. But, I refuse to engage in any personal conversation with them or develop any sort of deeper intimacy (and obviously would cut them out if they ever tried to cross that boundary). Men can be acquaintances, but never friends.
Edit to add: I also would never hang out with a male acquantance one-on-one in person. That crosses a line.
Edited
15
Unknown member
Oct 29, 2023
Replying to
Yeah I've learned from experience that men will interpret any kind of one-on-one interaction as romantic interest. Nowadays I don't have any male friends and whenever I interact with men, I'm polite and I stick to small talk.
Unknown member
Oct 29, 2023
"Him icing you out when you get a boyfriend." --> happend to me after a 7(!)-years friendship. We were really close. Like really. As soon as I got into a relationship that got serious over time he started to act like a jerk. Eventually I had to end the friendship (he was too much of a coward to do so). I never ever thought that would happen. They are patience and they can wait for years and years if needed. I felt so betrayed. All of those years, just for him waiting to be finally able to f*ck me. Thanks for nothing, arsehole.
I was friends (lol) with a guy in college for EIGHT YEARS. Unbeknownst to me, he spent that entire time trying to get with me and even triangulated the women he dated into trying to make me jealous. Which of course didn't work because I wasn't interested in him.
I had no idea until our late 20s when he sent me hate mail bragging he'd just gotten engaged and how I'd "missed my chance" with him.
I was stunned. A decade wasted on this asshole.
He's one of the worst cases I've experienced, but not the only one. I befriended dozens of guys in my youth, all a total waste. It's only a matter of time before men try to get into your pants or sabotage your chances with other guys.
Now I only have male acquaintances or what I call 2nd tier friends i.e. we bond over mutual hobbies or career advancement and I might even invite some of them to my wedding, but I have a hard limit on their level of emotional and physical access to me.
They respect that and show affection by doing things for me. I'm not calling them every week to chat. That shit's for my family and girlfriends, and these guys are too busy prioritizing their own families anyway (as they should).
Grown men have no business prioritizing female friends and those that do have an agenda.
And suddenly you realize they were just using you as a placeholder for attention and emotional comfort until someone who would actually fuck them in addition to all that came along.
This happened to me when I was younger. It all started when I had just started my thesis and I was sharing an office with another student who was also writing his thesis but had a different supervisor who was a real asshole. So we kind of bonded over venting about his supervisor and the struggles of writing and so on. I was never interested in him romantically and he never made a move on me, so naive me thought it was really a "just friends" thing. The constant bullying by his supervisor and later boss (which was real, I witnessed it) bothered him more and more over the years and it turned into me comforting him, late night calls, me going with him to the mental health providers and services, literally talking him off a ledge etc. He also supported me and helped me and my family out on numerous occasions, so I really considered it a friendship. He never really seemed to care if I dated other men, either.
This went on for years until he suddenly stopped responding to my texts. He literally went radio silent on all channels from one day to the other. Because of his mental health history I naturally started to worry and made some inquiries and found out through some mutual acquaintances that he had gotten a girlfriend the day before he stopped responding to my messages. I was pretty hurt but took the hint and stopped contacting him thinking maybe his girlfriend was (rightfully) wary about him having a close female friend.
Skip forward around 3 years(!) of zero contact, not even a fucking card when my father (whom he knew) died. Suddenly he texts me out of nowhere like nothing has happened and wants to reconnect and catch up. Guess, what? His girlfriend had just left him and suddenly I was good enough again. Fuck that.
Edited
Unknown member
Oct 29, 2023
Replying to
I'm so sorry. I experienced similar things. Guys texting me out of the blue after months and years of silence. It's always due to the reason they lost their former mommymcbangmaid and look for the next best woman. That is how they see us: objects who are there to fulfill their needs. They do not fucking care about us as friends, they just like the benefits of having a woman around for emotional support etc. As soon as something better comes along you are thrown away.
Women can be friends with men. They are perfectly capable of being close to a person of the other gender without sexualising them or confusing a platonic with a romantic relationship.
The problem is that men can't be friends with women.
100% this. It has helped me so much to understand that most men do NOT see women as human beings. We are merely objects to be used by them. This is why the media portrays women as objects, over and over. This is why men love porn.
Therefore it's impossible for a man to truly think of a woman as a friend: he just wants to f*ck her, and in the meantime will use her as his hot water bottle / emotional support object.
I used to wonder why all my male "friendships" ended in them hitting on me. I used to blame myself for sending the wrong signals (wtf?). Nope. It's 100% their fault.
Nothing has healed me so much in this world as acknowledging that most men are emotionally stunted creatures who only love themselves and other men.
5
Unknown member
Oct 29, 2023
Even gay men use women 'friends'. As soon as someone or something better comes along, they dump you. Gosh it's grim out there.
This is worth repeating:
If a man you're dating tells you he has a close female friend, then YOU ARE A PLACEHOLDER.
He is her friend only because friendship is the only thing she has allowed from him.
Run.
Most of them can't be friends, unless you grew up together I don't believe men and women can be friends. unless friend is code word for booty call,
Business partners yes, friends? No, men want to be friends because they can go dutch hanging out with you, they can get to know you for free without courting or going on paid dates.
All men I gave a chance to be my friend all tried to have sex, or get my nudes, or will talk dirty to me after months being friends, I haven't met a man who claims he wants to be friends with also some benefits on top.
I will not talk to men, I can work together with them on a project for University but I will never talk to them in my private life, It's either just business or goodbye.
I once chatted with a guy who wanted a date with me. After a couple days of chatting he mentions his female best friend. He casually tells me that they regularly frequent an all nude, mixed gender sauna together.... Yeah, no thanks. Blocked and deleted right then and there. There are no friendships between male and female.
If you think that a guy that's already in a relationship is safer to just be friends with, think again. So many of these guys are trying to branch out looking for women for side attention. One even had the audacity to ask me to be a third in their relationship.
Also another reason not to be friends with men is them disappearing when they get a girlfriend.
I have male acquaintances I will hang out with or chat with on occasion because we share the same hobbies, etc. But, I refuse to engage in any personal conversation with them or develop any sort of deeper intimacy (and obviously would cut them out if they ever tried to cross that boundary). Men can be acquaintances, but never friends.
Edit to add: I also would never hang out with a male acquantance one-on-one in person. That crosses a line.
"Him icing you out when you get a boyfriend." --> happend to me after a 7(!)-years friendship. We were really close. Like really. As soon as I got into a relationship that got serious over time he started to act like a jerk. Eventually I had to end the friendship (he was too much of a coward to do so). I never ever thought that would happen. They are patience and they can wait for years and years if needed. I felt so betrayed. All of those years, just for him waiting to be finally able to f*ck me. Thanks for nothing, arsehole.
"they can't wait to use you as their mother"
Holy shit I wanna go back to a year ago and shake myself while screaming this!
Women can be friends with men. They are perfectly capable of being close to a person of the other gender without sexualising them or confusing a platonic with a romantic relationship.
The problem is that men can't be friends with women.
Also, they may hope if they hang around long enough they’ll find you in a vulnerable moment and offer “comfort” i.e. sex.
100% this. It has helped me so much to understand that most men do NOT see women as human beings. We are merely objects to be used by them. This is why the media portrays women as objects, over and over. This is why men love porn.
Therefore it's impossible for a man to truly think of a woman as a friend: he just wants to f*ck her, and in the meantime will use her as his hot water bottle / emotional support object.
I used to wonder why all my male "friendships" ended in them hitting on me. I used to blame myself for sending the wrong signals (wtf?). Nope. It's 100% their fault.
Nothing has healed me so much in this world as acknowledging that most men are emotionally stunted creatures who only love themselves and other men.
Even gay men use women 'friends'. As soon as someone or something better comes along, they dump you. Gosh it's grim out there.
https://youtu.be/tsH-tqKanLk?si=3u04gL1m-Ev8YYyj
I was just gonna make a post about this video